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There were balloons, music, a half-dozen Yeti coolers, and a gaggle of men congregating by a smoking grill. This must be a birthday party. Or maybe a graduation celebration. I hadn’t been able to find a number on the house when I pulled up, but to the left was six twelve and to the right six sixteen, so it had seemed only logical that this one was six fourteen.
I turned around to sneak out before someone realized I’d just crashed their party, when I heard my name.
“Josie! There you are!” Bernadette Macon pushed up on her tippy toes, flailing her arm around as she waved from the other side of the yard.
Oh Lord. I’m in the right place. But this was definitely not asmall get-together…
I hesitated before walking to meet her in the middle of the yard. Bernadette swamped me in a hug like we were long-lost friends, rather than people who’d met at the coffee shop last week.
I smiled. “I thought I was at the wrong house. I didn’t realize you were having a party today. For some reason, I thought it was just going to be us and Tommy Miller, maybe a few other friends.”
She waved her hand around at the packed backyard and laughed. “This is a few other friends.”
There had to be fifty people milling around. “I’m not sure I even know this many people,” I said.
Bernadette hooked her arm with mine. “Well, you do now. All of these people are here to meet you. You’ve exchanged cards with a lot of them. When word got out you were the guest of honor today, my phone rang off the hook. It was fun being popular again.”
When I looked around, all eyes were on me. It was a little overwhelming.
“What do you have here?” She pointed to the stuff I was carrying. “Does it need to go in the refrigerator? If it does, it might have to settle for sitting on top of the ice in one of the beer coolers. My fridge is stuffed with eight gigantic trays of Hawaiian macaroni salad. It’s Troy Zimmerman’s favorite. His wife passed away six months ago—God rest her soul—and the ladies are all on the hunt now. Not sure why they bothered, he’s only going to have an eye for Georgina Mumford. She’s got a big waddle.”
“A waddle?”
Bernadette motioned to her neck. “Saggy skin. Troy’s always had a thing for a woman with a waddle. His wife looked like a turkey in that regard.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I held up the boxes. “Uh. No. Nothing needs to be refrigerated. I made cupcakes and rainbow cookies.”
“Good. Come on, let’s put them inside and get you some wine to help settle your nerves. You look like my students always did when I’d spring a pop quiz on them in English class.”
A few ladies were prepping food at the kitchen island. Just like in the yard, they all stopped what they were doing when I walked in.
“Now don’t scare the poor girl away.” Bernadette waved them off. “She’s not a chimpanzee in the zoo.”
The ladies promptly ignored Bernadette and walked over one at a time to introduce themselves.
“It’s good to meet you,” the youngest of the three women said. “I’m Lauren Arnold. We’ve been exchanging cards for a long time. Mine is the one with four dogs on the front.”
I pointed. “You always dress the dogs in costumes from nursery rhymes, but add a Christmas theme to it, right?”
The woman smiled proudly. “That’s me. I’m a seamstress. I make custom costumes for kids for Halloween. Well, and now for pets too. People took a liking to my Christmas card and started asking if I’d make something for their pets. So now my business is almost fifty-fifty, human and animal costumes.”
“I loved the Mad Hatter tea party scene you did last year.”
After Lauren, I met Wanda and Rena and finally a lady named Hope. Hope was petite, had naturally white hair that suited her, and the most gorgeous green eyes. There was something familiar about her, so I thought perhaps we’d exchanged cards and hers had a photo.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Josie.” She patted my hand and held onto it. “Your father was a dear friend of mine. I was so sad to hear about his passing years ago.”
“Thank you.”
Bernadette Macon handed me a glass of wine and piped in. “Hope here is being polite, because unlike me, she’s an actual lady. She and your father were more than friends. They used to suck face in the stairwell at school every chance they got.”
Hope blushed. “Bernadette, you hush now. Josie doesn’t want to hear about that. We were just kids. Her father was a happily married man.”
“Actually, I’d love to hear about my dad when he was younger. He died when I was thirteen, so I never had the chance to ask about his teenage years, other than knowing how much he loved living here in Laurel Lake.”
“The two of them were inseparable from seventh grade on,” Bernadette said. “So anything you want to know about your daddy, this one would know. If not, ask his best friend, Tommy Miller. He’s going to be here a little later.”
“Really? You and my dad were a couple for that long?”
